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{{Short description|Introducing Mozart's Dissonance Quartet}}
{{Short description|Introducing Mozart's Dissonance Quartet}}
{{Infobox musical composition
[[File:Beginning of Quartet in C (K.465) - Mozart MS- Six Quartetts dedicated to Haydn (Op.10) (1785), f.57 - BL Add MS 37763.jpg |Mozart's manuscript of K.465|thumb|200px]]The '''String Quartet No. 19''' in [[C Major]], [[Köchel catalogue|K.]] 465 by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]], nicknamed "[[Consonance and dissonance|Dissonance]]" on account of its unusual slow introduction, is perhaps the most famous of his quartets.{{cn|date=October 2022}}
| name = String Quartet No. 19
| composer = [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]
| image = File:Beginning of Quartet in C (K.465) - Mozart MS- Six Quartetts dedicated to Haydn (Op.10) (1785), f.57 - BL Add MS 37763.jpg
| alt = Incipit of Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 in C Major.
| caption = Mozart's manuscript of K.465
| translation =
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| key = C Major
| catalogue = [[Köchel_catalogue|K. 465]]
| opus =
| genre = [[Chamber music]]
|type = [[String quartet]]
| form =
| text =
| language =
| melody =
| client =
| composed = January 14, 1785. [[Vienna]].
| performed = February 12, 1785
| published = Vienna: [[Artaria]]. 1785
| movements = 4
| scoring = 2 vn, va, vc
| misc =
}}
The '''String Quartet No. 19''' in [[C Major]], [[Köchel catalogue|K.]] 465 by [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]], nicknamed "[[Consonance and dissonance|Dissonance]]" on account of the unusual counterpoint in its slow introduction. It is perhaps the most famous of his quartets.


==History==
It is the last in the set of [[Haydn Quartets (Mozart)|six quartets]] composed between 1782 and 1785 that he dedicated to [[Joseph Haydn]]. According to the catalogue of works Mozart began early the preceding year, the quartet was completed on 14 January 1785.
[[File:Original cover of Mozart's Haydn String Quartets.jpg|alt=Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.|thumb|200px|left|Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.]]It is the last in the set of [[Haydn Quartets (Mozart)|six quartets]] composed between 1782 and 1785 that he dedicated to [[Joseph Haydn]]. According to the catalogue of works Mozart began early the preceding year, the quartet was completed on January 14, 1785.


On February 12, Mozart and [[Leopold Mozart|his father]] performed the quartet along with two others (K. [[String_Quartet_No._17_(Mozart)|458]], [[String_Quartet_No._18_(Mozart)|464]]) for Haydn. Anton and Bartholomäus Tinti most likely played the other parts in the ensemble.<ref name=OD/>{{rp|236}}
==Movements==
{{Listen|filename=Mozart;_String_Quartet_No._15_In_C_Major_"Les_Dissonances"_K465,_I._Adagio-Allegro.ogg|title=I. Adagio-Allegro}}
{{Listen|filename=Mozart string quartet no. 19 in C Major KV 465 ("Dissonance Quartet"), II Andante Cantabile (excerpt).mp3|title=II. Andante cantabile (excerpt)}}
As is normal with Mozart's later quartets, it is in four movements:


No patron commissioned these quartets, which makes them an unusually personal effort by the composer.<ref name=JAV/>{{rp|111}} In his dedication, he refers to the quartets as his "children" that he is sending "out into the great world". Mozart continues, "They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavour..."<ref name=OD>Deutsch, Otto. ''[https://archive.org/details/mozartdocumentar0000deut_i1h0/page/250/mode/1up Mozart: A Documentary Biography]''. Translated by Eric Bloom, etc. Stanford University Press: 1966.</ref>{{rp|250}} In these quartets he deviated from his usual practice of [[Sheet_music#Other_types|short scoring]] "Hauptstimmen" (main voices) and filling in the rest later. Striving to combine Haydn's quartet language and Bach's counterpoint, he composed all four voices at once.<ref name=MF>Flothuis, Marius. "[https://archive.org/details/stringquartetsof0000isha/page/158/mode/1up?view=theater A Close Reading of the Autographs of Mozart's Ten Late Quartets]", in ''The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manuscripts''. Isham Library Papers III, ed. Christoph Wolff and Robert Riggs (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 154-78.</ref>{{rp|155, 160}}
# [[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|Adagio]]-[[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|Allegro]]
# [[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|Andante]] [[cantabile]] in [[F major]]
# [[Minuet|Menuetto]]. Allegretto. (C major, trio in [[C minor]])
# Molto [[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|allegro]]


[[Artaria|Artaria & Company]] announced the publication of all six quartets on September 17, 1785 in the ''[[Wiener Zeitung]]''.<ref name=OD/>{{rp|252}} According to Leopold Mozart, the firm paid the composer 100 [[ducat|ducats]] for the publishing rights.<ref>[[Konrad Küster|Küster, Konrad]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/mozartmusicalbio0000kust/page/189/mode/1up Mozart: A Musical Biography]''. Translated by Mary Whittall. Clarendon Press, 1996. 189.</ref>


==Form==
The first movement opens with ominous quiet Cs in the [[cello]], joined successively by the [[viola]] (on A{{music|flat}} moving to a G), the second [[violin]] (on E{{music|flat}}), and the first violin (on A), thus creating the "dissonance" itself and narrowly avoiding a greater one. <!-- the dissonance is a ninth, but if the A{{music|flat}} ''hadn't'' moved to a G when the violin entered on A, the A{{music|flat}} and A would indeed have clashed.--> This lack of harmony and fixed key continues throughout the slow introduction before resolving into the bright C major of the Allegro section of the first movement, which is in sonata form.
{{Listen|filename=Mozart;_String_Quartet_No._15_In_C_Major_"Les_Dissonances"_K465,_I._Adagio-Allegro.ogg|title=I. Adagio-Allegro|description=Performed by [[Quatuor Mosaïques]]}}
[[Image:DissonanceQuartetopening.jpg|thumb|500px|none|Start of first movement]]
===I. Adagio-Allegro===
[[Image:DissonanceQuartetopening.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Start of first movement]]The 22-bar '''[[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|Adagio]]''' opens with quiet [[eighth note]] Cs in the [[cello]]. It is joined by the [[viola]] on A{{music|flat}} and the second [[violin]] on E{{music|flat}}. The first violin enters on A, creating the initial "dissonance" that flummoxed so many listeners. The tension between the A{{music|flat}} and A is a structural feature of the entire quartet. The Adagio acts as a thesis statement for the composition, introducing the major ideas Mozart will revisit throughout the piece.<ref name=Baker>Baker, James M. "[https://archive.org/details/musictheoryexplo0000unse/page/286/mode/1up Chromaticism in Classical Music]", in Christopher Hatch and David W. Bernstein (eds.), ''Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past''. University of Chicago Press, 1993. 286–94.</ref>{{rp|291}}


While playing with the quality of the sixth [[Degree (music)|scale degree]], Mozart assiduously avoids the third to keep the tonality ambiguous. The quartal melodies give rise to [[whole tone]] sonorities. The E is only used as a [[Nonchord_tone#Neighbor_tone|neighboring tone]] until the first violin plays it on the downbeat of measure 14, but the part immediately descends to an E{{music|flat}} on the next beat.<ref name=Baker/>{{rp|288–9}}
Mozart goes on ([[Image:Loudspeaker.svg|11px]] [[Media:Mozart KV 465 1 Quarten for wikipedia.mid|Listen]]) to use [[chromatic]] and [[whole tone]] scales to outline fourths. Arch shaped lines emphasizing fourths in the first violin (C – F – C) and the violoncello (G – C – C' – G') are combined with lines emphasizing fifths in the second violin and viola. Over the barline between the second and third measures of the example, a fourth-suspension can be seen in the second violin's tied C. In another of his string quartets, [[String Quartet No. 18 (Mozart)|KV 464]], such fourth-suspensions are also very prominent.


The entire Adagio is an elaborate preparation of the [[Dominant (music)|dominant]] chord which Mozart emphasizes with a fermata in its final measure.<ref>[[Charles Rosen|Rosen, Charles]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/isbn_0571049168/page/282/mode/1up The Classical Style]''. [[Faber & Faber]], 1971. 282.</ref> When the '''Allegro''' begins, the cello is [[tacet]], and the viola has taken up its eighth note Cs, playing them an octave higher and much more ebulliently than the opening bars.<ref>Brown, Marshall. “Mozart and after: The Revolution in Musical Consciousness.” ''[[Critical Inquiry]]'', vol. 7, no. 4, 1981, pp. 689–706.</ref>{{rp|700}}
The second movement is in [[sonatina]] form, i.e., lacking the [[Musical development|development]] section. [[Alfred Einstein]] writes of the coda of this movement that "the first violin openly expresses what seemed hidden beneath the conversational play of the subordinate theme".<ref>Einstein, p. 156.</ref>
[[Image:DissonanceQuartet2ndMovement.jpg|thumb|500px|none|Start of second movement]]


The main theme of the Allegro is constructed on a 2-bar [[Motif (music)|motive]] beginning on the tonic C. Mozart sequences the motive up to D in the next two bars, but instead of continuing up to E in the third statement, he leaps to G. He withholds the expected E in the sequence until bar 167 well into the [[Sonata_form#Recapitulation|recapitulation]] of the movement.<ref>Cavett-Dunsby, Esther. "Mozart's 'Haydn' Quartets: Composing Up and Down without Rules". ''[[Journal of the Royal Musical Association]]'' 113 (1988), 57-80.</ref>{{rp|76–9}} In the coda, there is a series of 21 consecutive dissonances in just 3 measures.<ref name=MF/>{{rp|158}}
The third movement is a [[minuet]] and [[ternary form|trio]], with the exuberant mood of the minuet darkening into the C minor of the trio.
[[Image:DissonanceQuartetMinuet.jpg|thumb|500px|none|Start of third movement]]


===II. Andante cantabile===
The last movement is also in [[sonata form]]. <br />
{{Listen|filename=Mozart string quartet no. 19 in C Major KV 465 ("Dissonance Quartet"), II Andante Cantabile (excerpt).mp3|title=II. Andante cantabile (mm. 75–end)|description=Anonymous performance for acoustic research at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences<ref>{{Cite web |last=Leckschat |first=Dieter |date=2020-02-02 |title=Streichquartett-Aufnahme zur Verwendung in der Virtuellen Akustik |url=https://zenodo.org/records/3601097 |access-date=2024-05-27 |website=[[Zenodo]]|doi=10.5281/zenodo.3601097 }}</ref>}}
[[Image:DissonanceQuartet4thMovement.jpg|thumb|500px|none|Start of fourth movement]]
[[Image:DissonanceQuartet2ndMovement.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Start of second movement]]The second movement is a {{music|time|3|4}} [[sonatina]] in F major. The violin's "dissonant" A natural from the quartet's opening now has pride of place as the mediant scale degree. In bars 93–101, the A{{music|flat}} returns to prominence as Mozart slips into the [[Parallel_key|parallel minor]].<ref name=Baker/>{{rp|291}}


The movement has been called the "heart" of the entire piece.<ref name="Irving">Irving, John. ''Mozart: The "Haydn" Quartets''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.</ref>{{rp|57}} [[Alfred Einstein]] writes of the coda of this movement that "the first violin openly expresses what seemed hidden beneath the conversational play of the subordinate theme".<ref>[[Alfred Einstein|Einstein, Alfred]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/mozart0000unse_a2i9/page/167/mode/1up Mozart, his character, his work].'' Trans. Mendel, A., and Broder, N. Panther, 1971.</ref>{{rp|167}}
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}


=== III. Menuetto and Trio. Allegro===
==References==
[[Image:DissonanceQuartetMinuet.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Start of third movement]]The third movement is a [[minuet]] and [[ternary form|trio]] in C major. The A is often ornamented with an [[appoggiatura]] G{{music|sharp}}, continuing Mozart's interplay between these two notes. In the trio, the tonality shifts to [[C minor]], returning the A{{music|flat}} to the fore. The cello's concluding melody in the trio highlights the vacillations between these notes.<ref name=Baker/>{{rp|291}} The texture is mercurial with unison passages often signaling a shift.<ref name=Irving/>{{rp|58}}
*[[Alfred Einstein|Einstein, Alfred]], trans. Mendel, A., and Broder, N., ''Mozart, his character, his work.'' Dover Publications paperback, 1972, republication of 1945 [[Oxford University Press]] edition. {{ISBN|978-0-486-22859-4}}.


===IV. Allegro molto===
==Further reading==
[[Image:DissonanceQuartet4thMovement.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Start of fourth movement]]The final movement is a lively contredanse in sonata form. The exposition lasts 136 bars, the [[Sonata form#Development|development]] 62, and Mozart includes a 48-bar [[coda (music)|coda]].
* John Irving, ''Mozart, the "Haydn" quartets''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1998)

There is a great deal of rhythmic variety in the movement. Mozart evokes Haydn's witty deployment of rests, which creates textural variety and contrasts the melodic material. The development is as harmonically audacious as the piece's introduction as it modulates through a [[circle of fifths]] in minor keys before returning to the main theme.<ref name=Irving/>{{rp|59f}}

==Reception==
The string quartet is one of Mozart's most analyzed compositions and has a long history of [[Musicology|musicological]] debate that began almost immediately upon its publication.<ref name=JAV>Vertrees, Julie Anne (1974). "[https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/currentmusicology/article/view/4348/1957 Mozart’s String Quartet K. 465: The History of a Controversy]". ''Current Musicology'', (17), 96–114.</ref> The first negative written comment about it was published in ''Magazin der Musik'' on April 23, 1787. The correspondent's letter was written on January 29th from Vienna, and reported on Haydn's visit to the city as well as Mozart's plans to travel to [[Prague]] and [[Berlin]]. The writer lamented the waste of Mozart's prodigious keyboard talent on composition and quipped, "...his new Quartets for 2 violins, viola and bass, which he has dedicated to Haydn, may well be called too highly seasoned-and whose palate can endure this for long?"<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=2yk9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1273 Nachrichten; Auszüge aus Briefen, Todesfälle]". ''Magazin der Musik''. Germany, Musicalische Niederlage, 1786. 1274–5.</ref> Two years later, in the same periodical (now published in [[Copenhagen]]), Mozart's complexity was praised, "...his six quartets for violins, viola and bass dedicated to Haydn confirm it once again that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!"<ref name=OD/>{{rp|349}} By 1799, an anecdote from [[Constanze Mozart]] was being repeated in the pages of ''[[Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung]]'' (AmZ) that the Italian printer sent the [[Music_engraving|engravings]] back to Artaria because he assumed the notes were errors.<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=0dwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA855 Anekdoten: Noch einige Kleinigkeiten aus Mozarts Leben, von seiner Witwe mitgetheilt]", ''Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung''. Germany, Breitkopf und Härtel, 1799. 855.</ref>

The first analytical insult to the piece was penned by [[Giuseppe Sarti]] who met Mozart in Vienna in 1784. Mozart felt he was a "good honest fellow" and wrote a set of variations (K. 460) on one of [[Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode|Sarti's arias]].<ref>[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.151167/page/n303/mode/1up (515) Mozart to his Father. June 9–12th, 1784]. ''The Letters of Mozart & His Family, Volume III''. Edited by Emily Anderson. [[Macmillan Publishers|MacMillan & Co.]], 1938. 1311–2.</ref> In his analysis of the quartet, Sarti called the violin's opening dissonance "execrable" and accused the composer of having "ears lined with iron". Sarti also analyzed [[String Quartet No. 15 (Mozart)|K. 421]] with his poison pen and concluded, "From these two examples it may be perceived that the author (whom I neither know nor wish to know) is nothing more than a piano-forte player with spoiled ears (!). who does not concern himself about counterpoint; he is a follower of the system of the octave divided into twelve equal semitones, a system long since declared by intelligent artists, and experimentally proved by the science of harmony, to be false."<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=zOcqAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA243 Sarti versus Mozart]", ''The Harmonicon''. United Kingdom, W. Pinnock, 1832. 243–6.</ref> The essay was seen as so gratuitous and vindictive that it was effectively embargoed by [[Bonifazio Asioli]] until his death in 1832 when it was finally published in AmZ. The actual date Sarti wrote it is unclear.<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=K2IPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA373 Auszug aus dem Sarti'schen Manuscripte, worin Mozart bitter getadelt wird]". ''AmZ'' 34 (6 June 1832): 373-78.</ref><ref name=JAV/>{{rp|99}}

[[File:K 465 Fetis.jpg|alt=Fétis' 2nd revision to Mozart's introduction|thumb|200px|left|Fétis' 2nd revision to Mozart's introduction]][[François-Joseph Fétis]] analyzed the quartet's introduction in his ''Revue Musicale'' (RM) on July 17, 1830. Fétis was so certain that the dissonances were the results of printing errors that he tracked down Mozart's manuscript when he was visiting London, where it was in the possession of J.A. Stumpff.<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=_C4uAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA605 Sur un Passage singulier d'un quatuor de Mozart]," ''Revue Musicale'' 5 (2 July 1829): 601–6.</ref>{{rp|605}} Fétis felt he could solve the problems created by Mozart by delaying the first violin's entrance by one beat. Not satisfied with this first revision, he altered it again by prolonging the 2nd violin's D into the 3rd bar.<ref>Fétis, François-Joseph . "[https://books.google.com/books?id=hSZDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA321 L'Introduction d'un quatuor de Mozart]," ''Rm'' 7 (17 July 1830): 321–8.</ref> Both revisions clumsily rewrite Mozart based on rules of imitation Fétis devised in his own theoretical work.<ref name=JAV/>{{rp|99}}

Several other writers tried their hand at analyzing or fixing Mozart's introduction, such as [[Gottfried Weber]], [[François-Louis Perne]], and Raphael-Georg Kiesewetter. [[Ernest Newman]] devotes a chapter to the quartet in ''A Musical Critic's Holiday''.<ref>Newman, Ernest. ''[https://archive.org/details/musicalcriticsho0000erne/page/131/mode/1up A Musical Critic's Holiday]''. Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. 131-50.</ref> The convoluted intellectual history of this passage is similar to the handwringing over [[Richard Wagner|Richard Wagner's]] prelude to ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]''. Ironically, Mozart's harmony is a clear functional predecessor to the [[Tristan chord]].<ref>De Fotis, Richard. "Rehearings: Mozart, Quartet in C, K. 465". ''19th-Century Music'', Summer, 1982, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Summer, 1982). 38.</ref>

===Nickname===
The piece was commonly referred to as the "Dissonance" quartet by the time [[Heinrich Schenker]] discussed it in 1906.<ref>Schenker, Heinrich. ''[https://archive.org/details/SchenkerHeinrichHarmony/page/n188/mode/1up Harmony]''. Translated by Elisabeth Mann Borgese. [[University of Chicago Press]], 1968. 347.</ref> It is unclear when and where the nickname originated.<ref name=JAV/>{{rp|110}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
==External links==
* [http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/mozart-quartet-in-c-major-k465-dissonance 'Mozart – Quartet in C major, K465 (Dissonance)'], lecture by [[Roger Parker]], followed by a performance by the Badke Quartet. [[Gresham College]], 10 October 2007.
* {{NMA|175|145|176|132|String Quartet No. 19}}

* [http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/mozart-quartet-in-c-major-k465-dissonance 'Mozart – Quartet in C major, K465 (Dissonance)'], lecture by [[Roger Parker]], followed by a performance by the Badke Quartet, [[Gresham College]], 10 October 2007 (available for download as MP3 or MP4, as well as a text document)
'''Scores'''
*[http://traffic.libsyn.com/gardnermuseum/mozart_k465.mp3 Recording] by the [[Borromeo String Quartet]] from the [[Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum]] in [[MP3]] format
*[https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:2820651$3i Original 1785 edition] published by Artaria at the Harvard Library.
* {{IMSLP2|work=String Quartet No.19 in C major, K.465 %28Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus%29|cname=String Quartet No. 19}}
*{{NMA|175|145|176|132|String Quartet No. 19}}
*{{IMSLP2|work=String Quartet No.19 in C major, K.465 %28Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus%29|cname=String Quartet No. 19}}

'''Recordings'''
*[https://archive.org/details/2-lener-sq-col-1545-8-ax-211-8-mozart-kv-465-mov-2-1923/1+L%C3%A9ner+SQ+-+Col+1545-8+AX211-8+Mozart+KV+465+mov+1+1923.flac Léner String Quartet]. [[Columbia Records]], 1923.
*[https://archive.org/details/lp_quartet-no-19-in-c-k-465-dissonant-qua_wolfgang-amadeus-mozart-guilet-string-q/disc1/01.01.+Quartet+No.+19+In+C%2C+K.+465%2C+%22Dissonant%22%3A+1st+Mvt.+-+Adagio%3B+Allegro%3B+2nd+Mvt.+-+Andante+Cantabile%3B++3rd+Mvt.+-+Menuetto%3B+Allegretto.mp3 Guilet String Quartet]. Musical Masterpiece Society, 1923.
*[http://traffic.libsyn.com/gardnermuseum/mozart_k465.mp3 Borromeo String Quartet]. [[Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum]].
*[https://archive.org/details/StringQuartetNo.19InCMajorK465/StringQuartetNo.19InCMajorK.465-I.AdagioAllegro.mp3 Musopen String Quartet], 2013.


{{Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart}}
{{Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart}}

Latest revision as of 07:10, 27 August 2024

String Quartet No. 19
String quartet by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Incipit of Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 in C Major.
Mozart's manuscript of K.465
KeyC Major
CatalogueK. 465
GenreChamber music
ComposedJanuary 14, 1785. Vienna.
PerformedFebruary 12, 1785
PublishedVienna: Artaria. 1785
Movements4
Scoring2 vn, va, vc

The String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, nicknamed "Dissonance" on account of the unusual counterpoint in its slow introduction. It is perhaps the most famous of his quartets.

History

[edit]
Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.
Cover page from Artaria's publication of Mozart's Six String Quartets.

It is the last in the set of six quartets composed between 1782 and 1785 that he dedicated to Joseph Haydn. According to the catalogue of works Mozart began early the preceding year, the quartet was completed on January 14, 1785.

On February 12, Mozart and his father performed the quartet along with two others (K. 458, 464) for Haydn. Anton and Bartholomäus Tinti most likely played the other parts in the ensemble.[1]: 236 

No patron commissioned these quartets, which makes them an unusually personal effort by the composer.[2]: 111  In his dedication, he refers to the quartets as his "children" that he is sending "out into the great world". Mozart continues, "They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavour..."[1]: 250  In these quartets he deviated from his usual practice of short scoring "Hauptstimmen" (main voices) and filling in the rest later. Striving to combine Haydn's quartet language and Bach's counterpoint, he composed all four voices at once.[3]: 155, 160 

Artaria & Company announced the publication of all six quartets on September 17, 1785 in the Wiener Zeitung.[1]: 252  According to Leopold Mozart, the firm paid the composer 100 ducats for the publishing rights.[4]

Form

[edit]
I. Adagio-Allegro
Performed by Quatuor Mosaïques
Problems playing this file? See media help.

I. Adagio-Allegro

[edit]
Start of first movement

The 22-bar Adagio opens with quiet eighth note Cs in the cello. It is joined by the viola on A♭ and the second violin on E♭. The first violin enters on A, creating the initial "dissonance" that flummoxed so many listeners. The tension between the A♭ and A is a structural feature of the entire quartet. The Adagio acts as a thesis statement for the composition, introducing the major ideas Mozart will revisit throughout the piece.[5]: 291 

While playing with the quality of the sixth scale degree, Mozart assiduously avoids the third to keep the tonality ambiguous. The quartal melodies give rise to whole tone sonorities. The E is only used as a neighboring tone until the first violin plays it on the downbeat of measure 14, but the part immediately descends to an E♭ on the next beat.[5]: 288–9 

The entire Adagio is an elaborate preparation of the dominant chord which Mozart emphasizes with a fermata in its final measure.[6] When the Allegro begins, the cello is tacet, and the viola has taken up its eighth note Cs, playing them an octave higher and much more ebulliently than the opening bars.[7]: 700 

The main theme of the Allegro is constructed on a 2-bar motive beginning on the tonic C. Mozart sequences the motive up to D in the next two bars, but instead of continuing up to E in the third statement, he leaps to G. He withholds the expected E in the sequence until bar 167 well into the recapitulation of the movement.[8]: 76–9  In the coda, there is a series of 21 consecutive dissonances in just 3 measures.[3]: 158 

II. Andante cantabile

[edit]
II. Andante cantabile (mm. 75–end)
Anonymous performance for acoustic research at Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences[9]
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Start of second movement

The second movement is a 3
4 sonatina in F major. The violin's "dissonant" A natural from the quartet's opening now has pride of place as the mediant scale degree. In bars 93–101, the A♭ returns to prominence as Mozart slips into the parallel minor.[5]: 291 

The movement has been called the "heart" of the entire piece.[10]: 57  Alfred Einstein writes of the coda of this movement that "the first violin openly expresses what seemed hidden beneath the conversational play of the subordinate theme".[11]: 167 

III. Menuetto and Trio. Allegro

[edit]
Start of third movement

The third movement is a minuet and trio in C major. The A is often ornamented with an appoggiatura G♯, continuing Mozart's interplay between these two notes. In the trio, the tonality shifts to C minor, returning the A♭ to the fore. The cello's concluding melody in the trio highlights the vacillations between these notes.[5]: 291  The texture is mercurial with unison passages often signaling a shift.[10]: 58 

IV. Allegro molto

[edit]
Start of fourth movement

The final movement is a lively contredanse in sonata form. The exposition lasts 136 bars, the development 62, and Mozart includes a 48-bar coda.

There is a great deal of rhythmic variety in the movement. Mozart evokes Haydn's witty deployment of rests, which creates textural variety and contrasts the melodic material. The development is as harmonically audacious as the piece's introduction as it modulates through a circle of fifths in minor keys before returning to the main theme.[10]: 59f 

Reception

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The string quartet is one of Mozart's most analyzed compositions and has a long history of musicological debate that began almost immediately upon its publication.[2] The first negative written comment about it was published in Magazin der Musik on April 23, 1787. The correspondent's letter was written on January 29th from Vienna, and reported on Haydn's visit to the city as well as Mozart's plans to travel to Prague and Berlin. The writer lamented the waste of Mozart's prodigious keyboard talent on composition and quipped, "...his new Quartets for 2 violins, viola and bass, which he has dedicated to Haydn, may well be called too highly seasoned-and whose palate can endure this for long?"[12] Two years later, in the same periodical (now published in Copenhagen), Mozart's complexity was praised, "...his six quartets for violins, viola and bass dedicated to Haydn confirm it once again that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. But then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!"[1]: 349  By 1799, an anecdote from Constanze Mozart was being repeated in the pages of Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (AmZ) that the Italian printer sent the engravings back to Artaria because he assumed the notes were errors.[13]

The first analytical insult to the piece was penned by Giuseppe Sarti who met Mozart in Vienna in 1784. Mozart felt he was a "good honest fellow" and wrote a set of variations (K. 460) on one of Sarti's arias.[14] In his analysis of the quartet, Sarti called the violin's opening dissonance "execrable" and accused the composer of having "ears lined with iron". Sarti also analyzed K. 421 with his poison pen and concluded, "From these two examples it may be perceived that the author (whom I neither know nor wish to know) is nothing more than a piano-forte player with spoiled ears (!). who does not concern himself about counterpoint; he is a follower of the system of the octave divided into twelve equal semitones, a system long since declared by intelligent artists, and experimentally proved by the science of harmony, to be false."[15] The essay was seen as so gratuitous and vindictive that it was effectively embargoed by Bonifazio Asioli until his death in 1832 when it was finally published in AmZ. The actual date Sarti wrote it is unclear.[16][2]: 99 

Fétis' 2nd revision to Mozart's introduction
Fétis' 2nd revision to Mozart's introduction

François-Joseph Fétis analyzed the quartet's introduction in his Revue Musicale (RM) on July 17, 1830. Fétis was so certain that the dissonances were the results of printing errors that he tracked down Mozart's manuscript when he was visiting London, where it was in the possession of J.A. Stumpff.[17]: 605  Fétis felt he could solve the problems created by Mozart by delaying the first violin's entrance by one beat. Not satisfied with this first revision, he altered it again by prolonging the 2nd violin's D into the 3rd bar.[18] Both revisions clumsily rewrite Mozart based on rules of imitation Fétis devised in his own theoretical work.[2]: 99 

Several other writers tried their hand at analyzing or fixing Mozart's introduction, such as Gottfried Weber, François-Louis Perne, and Raphael-Georg Kiesewetter. Ernest Newman devotes a chapter to the quartet in A Musical Critic's Holiday.[19] The convoluted intellectual history of this passage is similar to the handwringing over Richard Wagner's prelude to Tristan und Isolde. Ironically, Mozart's harmony is a clear functional predecessor to the Tristan chord.[20]

Nickname

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The piece was commonly referred to as the "Dissonance" quartet by the time Heinrich Schenker discussed it in 1906.[21] It is unclear when and where the nickname originated.[2]: 110 

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Deutsch, Otto. Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Translated by Eric Bloom, etc. Stanford University Press: 1966.
  2. ^ a b c d e Vertrees, Julie Anne (1974). "Mozart’s String Quartet K. 465: The History of a Controversy". Current Musicology, (17), 96–114.
  3. ^ a b Flothuis, Marius. "A Close Reading of the Autographs of Mozart's Ten Late Quartets", in The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manuscripts. Isham Library Papers III, ed. Christoph Wolff and Robert Riggs (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 154-78.
  4. ^ Küster, Konrad. Mozart: A Musical Biography. Translated by Mary Whittall. Clarendon Press, 1996. 189.
  5. ^ a b c d Baker, James M. "Chromaticism in Classical Music", in Christopher Hatch and David W. Bernstein (eds.), Music Theory and the Exploration of the Past. University of Chicago Press, 1993. 286–94.
  6. ^ Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. Faber & Faber, 1971. 282.
  7. ^ Brown, Marshall. “Mozart and after: The Revolution in Musical Consciousness.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 7, no. 4, 1981, pp. 689–706.
  8. ^ Cavett-Dunsby, Esther. "Mozart's 'Haydn' Quartets: Composing Up and Down without Rules". Journal of the Royal Musical Association 113 (1988), 57-80.
  9. ^ Leckschat, Dieter (2020-02-02). "Streichquartett-Aufnahme zur Verwendung in der Virtuellen Akustik". Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3601097. Retrieved 2024-05-27.
  10. ^ a b c Irving, John. Mozart: The "Haydn" Quartets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  11. ^ Einstein, Alfred. Mozart, his character, his work. Trans. Mendel, A., and Broder, N. Panther, 1971.
  12. ^ "Nachrichten; Auszüge aus Briefen, Todesfälle". Magazin der Musik. Germany, Musicalische Niederlage, 1786. 1274–5.
  13. ^ "Anekdoten: Noch einige Kleinigkeiten aus Mozarts Leben, von seiner Witwe mitgetheilt", Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. Germany, Breitkopf und Härtel, 1799. 855.
  14. ^ (515) Mozart to his Father. June 9–12th, 1784. The Letters of Mozart & His Family, Volume III. Edited by Emily Anderson. MacMillan & Co., 1938. 1311–2.
  15. ^ "Sarti versus Mozart", The Harmonicon. United Kingdom, W. Pinnock, 1832. 243–6.
  16. ^ "Auszug aus dem Sarti'schen Manuscripte, worin Mozart bitter getadelt wird". AmZ 34 (6 June 1832): 373-78.
  17. ^ "Sur un Passage singulier d'un quatuor de Mozart," Revue Musicale 5 (2 July 1829): 601–6.
  18. ^ Fétis, François-Joseph . "L'Introduction d'un quatuor de Mozart," Rm 7 (17 July 1830): 321–8.
  19. ^ Newman, Ernest. A Musical Critic's Holiday. Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. 131-50.
  20. ^ De Fotis, Richard. "Rehearings: Mozart, Quartet in C, K. 465". 19th-Century Music, Summer, 1982, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Summer, 1982). 38.
  21. ^ Schenker, Heinrich. Harmony. Translated by Elisabeth Mann Borgese. University of Chicago Press, 1968. 347.
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Scores

Recordings

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